The wide spread use of mobile communication devices for wireless data communication has made it a great challenge for manufacturers and operators of telecommunications networks to provide wireless data communication with sufficient bandwidth and high capacity. In particular, communication-related issues may arise in transportation-related use scenarios. For example, on trains, where typically a large number of users attempt to use fast data communication services simultaneously through the same limited number of base stations in reach of the train, it may be very difficult to provide sufficient data communication capacity for a passing train. Moreover, the tremendous increase of the speed of trains has augmented this problem as data communication resources need to be provided very quickly, with great bandwidth and high capacity, and for very short periods of time between handovers.
In the U.S. Pat. No. 5,548,835 (NEC CORP) 12 Feb. 1994 a train radio communication system is described including a plurality of land communication equipment and a train communication equipment. The land communication equipment is arranged at predetermined intervals along a railroad on which a train travels and designed to output transmission signals at different frequencies. The train communication equipment is arranged in the train and designed to set a radio channel between the train communication equipment and one of the land communication equipment during travel of the train. The train communication equipment includes a plurality of antennas, an antenna switch, a receiver, and an antenna controller. The antennas respectively receive the transmission signals from the land communication equipment. The antenna switch selects one of the antennas. The receiver demodulates an output from the antenna selected by the antenna switch and outputs a reception signal. The antenna controller includes a current position detecting section for detecting a current traveling position of the train and controls the antenna switch in accordance with a current traveling position from the current position detecting section.
US2014198715 (SWISSCOM AG) 17 Aug. 2014 describes methods and systems for establishing wireless communication between a train and one or more base stations arranged along a track travelled by the train and may comprise setting up communication channels between one or more antennas of communication relays on the train and one or more antennas of the base stations. Channel state information (CSI) may be determined and stored in a data store, and the CSI may be used for communicating via the communication channels, depending on information defining the current location of the communication relays. The CSI can be used to establish several independent communication channels for MIMO (multiple in/multiple out) communication between the base station or base stations and relays or antenna systems mounted on the train.